George Abraham TURNER

                   Gwen was a good student - a story has it that Gwen would go to school and tell her teacher her father's name was "George Washington Abraham Lincoln Turner" and with that remark all the teachers knew Gwen. It was Gwen's choice not to go to college and this disappointed her mother very much. Gwen became a dance instructor to children and had a very successful school. She taught all kinds of dancing- tap, ballet, singing and dancing, etc. Her schools were all throughout the Salinas Valley. She designed the costumes and helped the Mothers make them.

Gwen did not want to move to San Francisco but May insisted and it proved to be a wonderful move. Gwen became involved in many San Francisco activities and had many friends. She also took up ice skating and she met her husband Lemual Matthews there. Lem was an attorney and Gwen later became the president of the San Francisco lawyer's wives. She and Lem had a very active social life and were happy with their adopted son George and their dogs. They continued to live in San Francisco but also had a beautiful home in Glen Ellen in the Sonoma Valley.

Gwen Turner Matthew was a lady of energy, intelligence and humor, land she brought these qualities to bear on the many facets of her life as a career woman, mother, wife, volunteer and friend. Gwen was never one to sit still and let life pass her by. Nor was she ever a person to duck responsibility or avoid work helpful for the benefit of others.

Shortly after our country entered WWII, she applied for and got, a civilian "hush-hush" position in the office of the Counter Intelligence Corps in the U.S. 4th Army Headquarters. Additionally she volunteered to chauffeur and entertain troops awaiting transfer over-seas for combat duty. At the end of WWII, she volunteered to assist in the chauffeur's motor pool to serve the visiting foreing delegates during the birth of the United Nations in San Francisco.

A lover of music and dancing, she put her talents to work in the 1930's by organizing and successfully running her own dancing school (primarily for children), for approximately 10 years. Even after her years as a dancer ended, Gwen and her sisters, Pat and Dorothy "the Three Turner Girls" would never hesitate to perform their numbers (usually loaded with slapstick), which delighted their audiences.

Gwen liked to get involved in everything in her younger years. She was a natural leader, serving as President of the San Francisco Skate and Ski Club, as President of the Lawyers Wives Club in San Francisco and in taking an active role in the St. Brendan's School Parents Group. She enjoyed and even saw the humorous side of being "Madam Chair - Person". How many of us here today will remember her famous oft - repeated classical speech in which she could out- perform the best of our wind-bag politicians?
                  

                   Note: Died of Diptheria at the age of 18 months. His mother, May did not get over his death.
                  

                   Note: In a letter to Dot (Dorothy): From the Turner Bible: Maria Agnes Fleming Turner (our grandmother); Sallie Mulhearn Fleming (our great grandmother); Mary Collins Mulhearn (our great great grandmother). 

   Patrick and Michael Collins were uncles (or great uncles?). Michael became a priest and moved to New York. Sallie Mulhearn married Frank Fleming, a farmer from Roscommon, Ireland. Three girls and two boys were born. The two boys died as babies-also their sister Kate. Frank Fleming came to America and died in New Orleans of Yollow Fever.

   Maria Agnes Fleming (our grandmother) was born in Dunsmore, County Galway, Ireland, in 1847. She sailed for San Francisco in 1869 with friends-Nellie Bruce and her five sisters. Nellie married a Doctor Bruce and our grandmother, Maria Agnes Fleming, met and married Captain John B. Turner shortly after her arrival. 

   Our grandfather, Captain John B. Turner was born in Saline County, Missouri on May 1, 1831. His father, Thomas Turner, was born in Albemarle County, Virginia. He died May 10, 1866 at the age of 56 in Antioch, Califronia. Thomas Turner, our great grandfather, was a pioneer in the great West and built the first fort in Missouri during the Black Hawk War. They crossed the plains in covered wagons in 1849 and engaged in the cattle business. In the 1850's Captain John Turner and his two brothers owned a steamboat which was called "The Antioch." It sailed on the San Joaquin and the Sacramento Rivers. There were no railroads in those days and they did a big business hauling freight and cattle and passengers.

   Our grandfather's mother, Catherine Turner, was born in Louisville, Kentucky. She died May 2, 1875 at 51 years 11 months and is buried in the family polot in Antioch. She was a very devout little Methodist and the old family bible shows the print of her pencil as she marked certain passages. Our grandmother Maria Fleming Turner, used to say she was so religious that wouldn't cook on Sunday.

   (Signed) Your lilttle Aunt Ruth

   The above is a letter to me from Aunt Ruth Bates and she ended it with "God bless them all and may they be in heaven. God bless you girls and your dear husbands and little families."

   Maria died peacefully in her daughter's Ruth's arms.

Dottie did very well in school and graduated from Stanford with a B.S. degree. She had many suitors and finally chose Marshall Leahy a San Francisco native and an attorney there. Marshall became the attorney for the San Francisco '49ers football team and also the California Rice Growers. Dottie gave birth to seven (7) children and two sets of twins, one set of twins passed away. With five daughters and an extremeley active social life, plus traveling the world over, Dottie and Marshall loved life. After Marshall's death Dottie moved to a retirement home in San Rafael, CA, However this did not slow Dottie down. She stayed in very close contact with her friends in San Francisco and at the Olympic Club in that city. Also, she spent many summer weeks at her home at Silverado Country Club. Life has always been a very social whirl for Dottie and she is known as an extremely generous host. She was very attached to her Leahy relations and her father's relations as well as the Doherty side. Dottie has always benn in love with life and life has always been in love with Dottie. As I am typing this, Dottie is celebrating her 84th birthday. Dottie also had a "hole in one" on the golf links in Burlingame.
                  

                   Pat married Richard "Dick" Sheretz, a doctor whom Dottie had met at Stanford University, and they had three children with only one set of twins. WWII was just beginning and Dick was a doctor in the European theater. Pat was living in Carmel with her two daughters and one son. After WWII Dick returned and they moved to Sunnyvale, CA. However with the separation of war, the marriage was not the same and a dissolution of marriage became a fact. Pat then moved to a beautiful home in Palo Alto that Dick had picked out for her to raise his children. The home became a refuge for Pat and her backyard was her joy, as it had the warm sun during the day and was very pleasantly landscaped. This garden became a place of much fun for the family as well as many relations that stopped by. After her children were grown, Pat met up with her old beau from Salinas days, William Franklin Cornell, and they were married. Pat was a loving and giving person.